Touched by Adoption

Saturday, 27 October 2007

Do you ever wonder who invented some of the words or phrases used when it comes to adoption. I do, maybe I just need to get a life!Some words are damn right offensive and some... Well, some are away with the fairies. The adopted child is a 'gift'. When I think of the word gift I think of wrapping paper and if I'm given a gift I immediately shake it. Not a very good idea if the 'gift' is a child. I've yet to see a child in wrapping paper, haha, and I cant imagine myself shaking a child.'Touched' by adoption. When I think of the word touch I think of Touched by an Angel (god I love that program!) or touched in the head, or even the touch of a butterflies wing on my face on a hot summers day. 'Touched' by adoption is something I don't feel. Battered, whacked, splattered, yes, those I do feel, but no, not touched.

Thursday, 25 October 2007

I had a few possible address's for the person who could be my mum. I also had pages and pages of people with same surnames that I had decided could be possible family members. I was considering writing to all the addresses that could be my mums when out the blue my friend emailed me to say she had found birth records of three possible siblings, oh fuck it, that's not a word I say! two sisters and a brother.I couldn't write direct to my mum knowing that she had kids. I hadn't even thought of sisters and brothers but I assumed that she would of never told them about me. She had ran off when I was just 10 days old and never had contact since (so I had been told) So why would she tell her kids.

I needed to start connecting all the people I had collected. I started to do a sort of family tree. When I had a rough tree I started going through all the local obituary columns. I thought when a family member dies its pretty normal to put an announcement in the local paper with funeral details saying loving bro/sis of whoever and loving son of. You know the thing. Anyway in the middle of the second night searching I found it! An obituary from 2002 saying loving brother to and devoted son to and loved uncle of... Everyone on my tree was mentioned, including my mum and sisters and brother. I finally knew I had the right family, a big family at that!

I narrowed it down to her brother and his wife (they had lived in same house for 15 yrs according to the electoral register) So that's who I wrote to. I lost count of how many pages I scribbled out. I didn't have a clue how to start it, but this is how it went. I told them my name and when I was born and said I thought their sister was my mum. I said I didn't want to contact her direct because of her family. That I didn't want to intrude into her life, but could I have a photo of her and maybe a letter. If I'm 100% honest I expected a reply saying she had moved on with her life and she didn't want contact. I was ready for that, I had only ever been told the story of her running off. I desperately wanted a photo though.Within a week of sending the letter my whole family had travelled 120 miles and landed on my doorstep.

Tuesday, 23 October 2007

I have kept every single scrap of paper during my search. Exercise books galore! some pages only have a couple of words, maybe a name or a possible address.Coffee cup rings and bits of crisps have stuck some pages together but I still wont throw any of it away. The kids call it my junk fetish. Every scrap of paper has a memory. The last two years of my search had me concentrating on three different families of the same name. I have cried so many times onto my scribbles, usually with frustration, but each one gave me a step forward or a scribble out. Scribble outs are just as good as a step forward! one less possibility, every bit helps.I wish the person who rubber stamped my life away could be forced to spend just half an hour in the lonely world of scraps in the hope of finding some identity.

A dark green Lacoste shoe box. The most precious thing in my life (apart from my kids). It holds my life. The life I have never known or been allowed to know...What colour is your box?What does your box hold? My box has my birth certificate, my two page adoption 'file' and loads of scraps of paper, not to mention lots of dust and fluff.

Every time I open my box I go through another emotional roller coaster. Each item, however small, holds apart of my journey. I promised myself that when I found my mum I would put a ribbon around my box and put it in the loft. It sat in the loft for less than a week. I need my box, how pathetic is that. It not only validates who I am but it validates my sanity, something I'm not prepared to lose.

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Closure. Now there's a word. For me the word was constant in most of my thoughts. Knowing who I was would bring closure. Finding my family, would bring closure...Just knowing... that was going to be my closure. I found out who I was. It didn't bring closure. I found my family. It didn't bring closure. Does closure even exist? Or is it just another fucked up belief we cling on to!I need closure. I want closure. So where the fuck is CLOSURE! I would love to hear from other adoptees as to whether or not closure exists. The closer I think I am to finding it I wake up to find it's further away than ever.I'm pissed off at being adopted. Adoption isn't just an event that happened to me as a child. Adoption is like a really crap movie, with a fuzzy beginning a middle with no meaning and an ending that leaves you thinking 'what the f#ck was that all about'.

A hospital blunder meant that the mothers went home with each others baby. I cant think of a worse nightmare. Obviously you would have bonded with the baby you had taken home and you would love that baby. What would you do? Personally, and I dont care how selfish I sound, I would want both babies! I would love both babies, I just know I would. I can't imagine the other mother would feel any diferently either. A horrible, horrible situation.

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

Quite possibly the most magical night of my life. Why? It was the night I gave birth to my first son. I must of lay staring at him for most of the night.Nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming love I felt for him. While I was pregnant I had all the romantic ideas of what my, I suppose I should say our, baby was going to be like. She was going to be gorgeous, only she turned out to be a he!

From the second I clapped eyes on him I knew that this must be what it feels like to love some one. The next day as he lay asleep in my arms I thought for the first time ever 'how could someone give their baby away'. I just thought, what a bitch to give a baby away, really what I meant was how could my mum of given me away!

I must of cried for the next 2 days, I couldn't tell anyone why I was crying, no one in my new life knew I was adopted, so It was put down to the baby blues. I made the decision then that I wouldn't give up till I found my mum. Before that time I had never once thought in that way, I had always thought that what ever reason my mum had me adopted was the right reason for her at the time. I have never thought it since then either. I just count my self lucky to have had my kids beside me and could never imagine the pain of losing any of them.

Friday, 5 October 2007

I had an email today from John Hemming MP (one of the very very few MPs worthy of trusting) the email was around up of the latest adoption and family courts mattersI went to all the links, clicking all the related links along the way (as you do) and came across something that I couldn't quite believe. A couple who claim their adopted son was so emotionally disturbed he ruined their lives have won a damages claim against a council. The adoptive mother said http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2346917.stm her adopted son could be "a lovely little boy" for two-week periods.

The couple won damages for personal injuries; depression caused by the adoption; loss of earnings resulting from his needing constant supervision and the cost of the damage to their home caused by the boy.I don't know where I was when this story was coming out, I must of been asleep. I don't remember anything of the case, but what the fuck! Who would they of sued if she had given birth to the child! Read full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2586567.stm

Thursday, 4 October 2007

Real mums are exactly that. Real mums. They feel, they bleed and they hurt. Yet some think adoption is something to celebrate. Even going so far as having a nation adoption week. Would you celebrate this womans pain?

I have found a really good web site tonight http://poundpuplegacy.org/. It deals with all aspects of adoption, care issues, child abuse and the likes. Why mention it? It reminded me to laugh!Amongst all the serious issues the pound pups has HUMOUR. God I forgot what that was. My blog reads like a manic depressive slit throat cancelled party! I start going through my adoption stuff for posting and sometimes I'm right back in the time.

Once I stir up one bad memory it tends to trigger ten more. You know what though, I'm not a manic depressive and I did have some fun times growing up, usually at some poor bleeders expense, but hey I was young! After saying all that, I cant think of one funny thing that doesn't make me sound cruel, sick or one of Britain's most wanted! I always had a warped sense of humour and it was always getting me in trouble. Its no good, I'm sitting here laughing my head off remembering, god I was a vile child! I just hope any of my victims sustained no lasting damage. haha

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

It was a shop, that much never left me. The shop was on a long street, a street of houses though, not your typical row of shops (well typical of where I lived).I knew the shop really well, I even knew my way around it, in my head I did anyway. It was a funny angled shape, its door wasn't on the front, it was sort of on the side. Imagine a square and you slice the corner off, that's where the door was.

I remember I used to sit on top of big hessian sacks of potatoes in the back of the shop while the adults drank cups of tea in the front. It was always cold in there and smelt of onions!

The outside of the shop had red pointed railings that pulled across the door of a night and fastened with a pad lock. I always remembered the step (I know, weird!). The step was shiny and dipped in the middle where it had been worn away and it was slippy!

Having something that vivid in your head either had to be real or you must be slightly mad. Well no one could tell me how I knew the shop. I asked dozens of times over the years and always heard the same thing, 'you've imagined it'. When I was about ten I must of been going on about it again and my sister who was two years older than me said she remembered it and said the shop was Josie's. I'm not sure how it went but I know it only took a few words from my adoptive mum to convince my sister she was wrong and had been thinking of somewhere else.

When I was 25 I was going through a rough time, It isn't easy to explain, but here goes; I had spent most of my childhood being told I was imagining things that I believed I was. Believing it was my imagination didn't stop the thoughts I had though so obviously I did think I was crazy.

I had ran away from my home town at sixteen and in a way reinvented my self.No one knew me or knew I was a bit mad and that's how I wanted to keep it. I never spoke about my past ever, just in case they guessed I was a bit mad. I did a good job of acting normal, well, normalish, having an eating disorder is a bit harder to hide! Every now and again though my crazy thoughts would appear and it was getting harder to ignore.

Back to when I was 25, the red shop came back with avengance. I had been put on anti-depressants (didn't mention my thoughts to doctor) and had started to feel I was losing the plot. I knew if I found the shop with the red door I would be ok. I would know I wasn't going mad again. I arranged for a friend to pick my son up from nursery the next day and have him over night. I dropped my son off and got the train to Liverpool.

I went to every area of Liverpool that I knew as a child, nothing. I got the last train back home. I must of cried for the hour and a half journey home. I had been convinced I would find it and everything would make sense. I just wanted to get my son and shut myself in the house. I got to my friends and my son was fast asleep it was obvious I had been crying (god, forgive me but I had lied to my mate and said I was going to a family funeral) so she convinced me to stay the night with her. A month later I had what they said was a nervous breakdown. A complete shock to all my friends because they had always seen me as a strong person.

The second time I met my real family was in Liverpool. I had found them two weeks earlier and had gone to stay with them for a couple of weeks. I stayed at my real sisters house (though the whole family live in the same street) on the second night we were going through all the family photos and getting to know each other slowly. I told her about the red door but she didn't comment on it.

The next morning she insisted we go and get some fags. We had been in our pyjamas since the night I got there( pigs Yeh! but we had a lot of catching up to do!). We got dressed and she asked if I'd go to the shop while she fed her baby. She said I couldn't get lost because it was only near the bottom of the road. I saw the railings they were blue though not red, I felt physically sick. I walked in bought the fags and left. My sister was standing on her doorstep and she just hugged me. She said she knew straight away what shop I was talking about. The shop is called the sister shop in Peel rd Bootle, I had been born in the next rd. The name my adopted sister had mentioned Josie, was my real mums best friend.